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Bug 8643 - Headings out of sequence
Summary: Headings out of sequence
Status: RESOLVED NEEDSINFO
Alias: None
Product: HTML WG
Classification: Unclassified
Component: pre-LC1 HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson) (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC Windows NT
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ian 'Hixie' Hickson
QA Contact: HTML WG Bugzilla archive list
URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/semantics....
Whiteboard:
Keywords: a11y
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2010-01-05 10:26 UTC by Gez Lemon
Modified: 2010-10-04 14:27 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:

Attachments

Description Gez Lemon 2010-01-05 10:26:19 UTC 
The section on headings indicate that it's fine to use headings out of sequence. This can be problematic to some assistive technology users that expect headings in the correct order and use them to orientate themselves in the document. The specification should state that headings are used in order.
Comment 1 Ian 'Hixie' Hickson 2010-02-05 20:20:38 UTC 
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:
   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Did Not Understand Request
Change Description: no spec change
Rationale:

The spec currently says:

# Sections may contain headings of any rank, but authors are
# strongly encouraged to either use only h1 elements, or to use
# elements of the appropriate rank for the section's nesting level.

The spec then goes into excruciating detail as to how UAs (in particular, ATs) are to handle any set of headings in a coherent fashion, to address this particular accessibility problem.

Is the above sufficient, or would you like a more explicit condemnation?

If the latter, would it be sufficient to say that within a sectioning root, no heading element is allowed to be used that is of higher rank than the first heading element?
Comment 2 Michael Cooper 2010-02-11 17:26:35 UTC 
Per the proposal at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2010Jan/0245.html, the HTML A11Y TF does not plan to formally work on this issue at this time. This does not mean the TF has no interest in it, but does not have immediate plans to work on it. The TF may review the issue in the future.